Dozens injured in Kenyan university stampede after "terror scare"

Some 38 students were injured on Friday in a stampede which followed a security scare at a university in Kenya's Kiambu County, some 25km east of the capital Nairobi, police said.

Kiambu County Police Commander, James Mugera, said the Kenyatta University students mistook a fight between two students in the library for a terror attack at about noon.

"It started in the library where two boys started a fight and one of them stabbed the other. And after other students saw it, they screamed, which made many think it was a terror attack," Mugera told Xinhua by phone.

He said the students scampered for safety, with some jumping from the upper floors, which led to their injuries.

"We have about 38 students with multiple injuries. Situation is under control," the police officer added.

In November last year, a staff member of Strathmore University in Nairobi died after jumping off a school building in a security drill. The drill caused panic, in which some 20 others were injured, as many students said they had not been told about it.

Friday's incident came after police said Somalia-based Islamist group Al-Shabaab was planning terror attacks in Kenya during the Easter holiday.

Al-Shabaab gunmen killed more than 148 students and injured over 200 others in an attack on northeastern Kenya's Garissa University in April last year. Endit